Pearls Before Swine
by x-Goody2Shoes-x
Summary: "Items of quality offered to those who do not appreciate them." A two part story about Johanna, set after the movie. I don't own Sweeney Todd. Constructive criticism encouraged.
1. Part I

**Pearls Before Swine.**

**Part I.**

_"Ye may not give that which is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before the swine, that they may not trample them among their feet, and having turned - may rend you."_

She had always been nervous at night.

A lifetime lived in fear of the darkness - that every whisper, every sigh, every russel of the bedclothes, was seen, heard - being eternally observed, being granted no privacy, was something you never could get used to, even after a lifetime of it.

And Johanna Barker had had a lifetime of it.

From infancy to womanhood, her every movement had been observed by the dreaded Judge Turpin. Not in the Beadle's sly, lascivious gestures. The Judge was far too subtle for that. His methods were quieter. He preferred to allow his eyes to linger on her slender, snowy arms for a moment too long as she returned a book to a shelf, or to gently allow his fingers to whisper across a tassel of her yellow curls as she obediently fetched him another goblet of wine.

He would silently leave expensive gifts on her bed - the latest fashionable gowns, silken slippers, leather-bound books, jewels from the Orient.

Especially pearls.

The Judge adored pearls. He had once explained to her how a pearl was made - how a tiny grain of sand would become encased within an osyter, and gradually, over time, the grain of sand would become one of the pearls Johanna was used to seeing decorating her swan-like neck, or strung from her earlobes.

"It is strange, is it not, my dove," he once mused quietly, his unfathomable eyes thoughtfully trailing over her neck, where he had bestowed his latest gift of pearls. "How something so delicate, so exquisite, so naturally beautiful, so perfect in it's pure simplicity - is found within the depths of something quite base and foul? Indeed, it is almost like yourself, Johanna. Such perfection, coming from the depths of depravity. Think on that." And he had swept from the room quietly, leaving Johanna to reflect on the mystery of her parentage, and to feel encaged by the beautiful stones circling her neck.

Only in the dark did Johanna feel safe enough to tear the pearls off, and lock them away in her boudoir. But even then, she felt uenasy - in the dark, it is not as easy to pretend. In the light of day, it was easy to pretend the Judge had a purely innocent reason to gaze for so long, or to poision her porcelain skin with the touch of his wizened fingertips - in the darkness, there is no excuse for his gaze to linger, for his hearing to remain.

In the dark, there is nowhere to hide.


	2. Part II

Pearls Before Swine.

Part II.

Yes, she had always been nervous at night.

And nothing had changed, even when the dreaded Judge had lost, when his claim on her was meaningless, when he had gone forever.

Even when Johanna Barker had escaped into the darkness that once trammeled in around her, she had been nervous.

Even when the slender, shy, wiry youth had freed her from her ornate prison, even as his nervous smile promised an escape she had only ever dreamt of, she was nervous.

Dreams can so easily become nightmares.

And marriage had only shone in Johanna's future as a grim herald of doom.

But she was married to him now. There was no turning back. She was free. Yet also, she had effectively shackled herself to a new jailer, and really, if he was merciful or not, it was hardly the point.

So when the darkness came - the first darkness of her life as a wife - Johanna was nervous.

You wouldn't have guessed so.

She calmly removed the ridicolous hat she had worn that day, and allowed her yellow hair to tumble down to her waist. She had allowed the Misses of the tavern to bathe her until her marble skin flushed salmon pink, to gently douse her tangled curls in scented water until they were once again unbearably soft. She had lent Johanna her daughter's nightgown, and had exclaimed so about how pretty she looked.

Johanna had seen herself look prettier.

Johanna had seen herself look beautiful.

Johanna had seen herself dressed in the garish silks, the delicate lace, the exotic patterns of the latest fashions from London, to Paris, to the Orient. Johanna had seen her mane of silk braided into the most intricate of styles that would have graced a Queen. Johanna had seen her delicate figure weighted down with jewels that would have been fit for a King's ransom.

But seeing her reflection in the tavern bedchamber's looking-glass, bare-footed, in a white cotton nightgown that hid her slender body from the neck down, with her hair as fresh and bright as wheat in a sunlit field, and her heart-shaped face flushed so that her eyes sparkled in a way her unwanted jewels never had - Johanna thought she had never looked safer.

And so as she got into the bed, and watched the shadows of the fire in the grate dance on the ceiling and walls, and as she saw the candles gutter in their holders, her guardians of the light against the darkness, she felt only a flutter of nerves as Anthony's footsteps echoed down the corridor.

As the heavy door creaked shut behind him, she only felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

As he crossed the room, and took her reverently in his arms, she felt only the frantic fluttering of her heart against her chest, beating not in terror, but in ecstasy.

As he clung to her, his dark, tangled curls at odds with her silken golden mane, Johanna succumbed to the unkown, in a flush of desire.

Suspicion gave way to trust.

Terror gave way to acceptance.

Uneasiness gave way to the beginnings of something more than lust, but not yet love.

And as the fire died down, and the embers glowed purple in the night, and the full moon shone down through the window, and darkness lay entwined with light, Johanna thought of her pearls.

Her pearls that rose from the depths to the top.

Her pearls that were forced into rigid attire, to only be a trophy to those that desired it.

Her pearls that were not appreciated by either it's purchaser, or it's owner.

Pearls.

Pearls before swine.


End file.
